Crimson and Silver

Summary:

Garrett wakes to find himself in the shower, covered in blood...

Notes:

TW: there's talk of blood. A lot of it. It's not pretty. Garrett also suffers a relatively mild panic attack which Anders talks him through using a technique that I've used myself. It works, at least in my case.

Work Text:

Garret blinked, water droplets obscuring his vision. The shower? Why was he in the shower? Shouldn't he be in bed? You know, like sleeping?Weird, he hadn't been sleepwalking in years, not since Carver- Wait... is that...blood?

Rushing blindly from the shower, slipping in the red, viscous substance that the water was doing little to remove, Garrett made his way from the en suite into his bedroom, grabbing the phone from the nightstand and speed dialing the clinic. Thankfully it was the doctor himself that answered, not the part time clerk or Fenris. He didn't think he could handle trying to explain this to one of them right now.

“Garrett? Love, what is it? What's wrong? Are you injured?” Ever the doctor, even when the crisis involved people he loved.

“I don't- I don't know!” he wailed into the receiver. “I woke up already in the shower and it's covered in blood-”

“Yours?”

Garrett looked around at his body. He felt no pain anywhere, and even with his vampire healing, that much blood wouldn't have meant a serious wound. “No, I don't think so. But I have no clue what happened or why or- oh fuck, Anders I can't- I can't breathe!” And he couldn't seem to catch his breath, the world was spinning around him, chest constricting as though he were having a heart attach which, you know, vampire. Kinda can't happen.

“Garrett, Love, I need you to listen to me, all right,” Anders said, soothing. “I'm sending Fenris and Justice ahead of me, they can travel much more quickly than I can.” Garrett barely heard the scrabble of claws over the sound of his own wheezing. “Now, I need you to listen to the sound of my voice and do what I tell you, all right?”

He nodded, not registering that the other man could not see him over the phone.

“Garrett?”

“Y-” panting, wheezing, “Yeah.”

“Okay, now I know this might seem hard but I need you to inhale over four beats, then hold it for seven and exhale for eight. Think you can do that for me?”

“Yeah, yeah, I..I can do that. But Anders! All the-”

“No. First we need to calm you down, all right, Love? Now breathe. I'm getting into my car, and switching the clinic line over to my cell so you won't lose me. Justice is there and is also telling me how you're doing and what's going on, all right?”

He nodded once again but concentrated on his breathing instead of answering verbally. In four, hold, seven, exhale eight, again, and again, and again. Slowly his breathing began to calm and he could feel other things going on around him. The air was chilled and swirling, which would be the doctor's spirit of Justice at his side, and there was the scrabble of claws coming from the kitchen where the screen door was always left open for his use. Soon there was the feel of soft, thick fur rubbing up against his chilled skin. Shit, he needed to put some pants on or something, but he couldn't seem to move. And when did he end up crouched on the floor?

“Garrett? Can you hear me?” the phone crackled in his lax fingers.

“Y- yeah. Yes, Anders, I got you. Justice and Fenris are here.”

“Okay, good. Now, can you put Fenris on?”

Garrett chuckled weakly and lifted the cell to the werewolf's head. “He wants to talk to you.”

Fenris chuffed but moved forward to be able to hear better. A few moments late he moved away to padded over to the bathroom. Garrett watched until the wolf was out of sight, then heard the water turn off. When Fenris returned he was fully human and very nude. Normally one of Garrett's favourite sights but right now he was a little distracted.

“Mage? It is not his...No, none of it. And there is...something we will need to take care of in the rear yard.” Fenris was growling lowly in his throat.

The backyard? Garrett stood carefully, waiting while his knees stopped jittering, then slipped on a pair of sweats from the laundry hamper and made his way out before Fenris was on the phone. He felt the Spirit's chill a little more strongly but it made no move to stop him.

Garrett stepped out of the kitchen door into the waning light of the afternoon into a near blood bath. He gagged on the smell alone, thankful that he had no neighbours near enough to smell it. The deck would have to be completely replaced, the wood saturated as it was.

Farther out several of his smaller trees had been snapped- in at least one case sliced as though by scary sharp blade- and his poor roses were a lost cause. Great furrows marred the lawn in a multitude of places.

Oh, and let's not forget the bodies.

Two males, by the looks of them, one older, one young, but wearing the regalia of the Templars.

“Well, fuck.”

Garrett turned to see Anders standing at the doorway to the kitchen, Fenris out on the deck, pale and looking out at the carnage. “That's putting it mildly, Sweetheart.”

“Are you all right? Breathing okay?”

Garrett smiled slightly. “Yes, Anders. Thank you. Not sure what would have happened without you.”

The four, including Justice, stared out at the mess for several moments before Fenris spoke up. “They know what you are.”

He nodded. Most likely the Templars had come earlier in the afternoon, his vampire's instincts kicking in before he was even consciously awake, and without his human side's morals to pull back on some of his attacks, he had simply slaughtered them. And when they didn't check in, there would be more. And soon.

“Mage, take him into the house and pack a bag. I will clean this up and join you at the clinic, then we will find a place to lie low for a bit.” Fenris reached out to grip the vampire's shoulder and squeeze. “We will not let these monsters have you, Hawke. You have my word.”

Garrett appreciated the gesture, but how long before the damned Templars came for the werewolf? Or the Mage? No, something else would have to be done. And right soon if he didn't want to lose another love one to a Templar's silver.